


Elixir Vitae

by Erato_Syne, YoursTruly (Lyscey)



Series: Orphan Children of the Sun [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, And Barely A Plot, Blood, Bloodplay, Bucky Barnes: Blood Hound, F/M, M/M, Menstruation, Menstruation Kink, Multi, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Porn with Feelings, Threesome - F/M/M, Vaginal Sex, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 12:24:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7222213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erato_Syne/pseuds/Erato_Syne, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyscey/pseuds/YoursTruly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky waxes poetic about Darcy's menstrual cycle. Steve is only vaguely annoyed about being the one who always washes the bloody sheets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elixir Vitae

**Author's Note:**

> That’s right, minions, it’s menstrual kink; explicit, unapologetic, and thoroughly enjoyed by all participants. In fact, ‘explicit’ might be an understatement. This is our kink so we wrote it the way we like it: really dirty. If that doesn’t sound like your thing, maybe give this one a miss.  
> This is the first in a series of smutty one-shots planned for our Vampire!OT3 AU. (If you haven’t read ‘You and Me and the Devil Makes Three, you can still enjoy this fic. All you need to know is that Steve became a vampire, accidentally made Bucky one, too, and now they’re both living with their girlfriend and primary food source, Darcy.) We will get back to plot one day, but it is not this day. This day, we’re reveling in the contentedness of the characters and writing fluffy, kinky porn.  
> We hope you enjoy it!

The change is so gradual, Bucky’s surprised he and Steve notice it that first time, and that they were actually right about what caused it. It goes on for another two weeks after they first notice the shift, her smell getting darker and heavier by the day. The first day they met her, Stevie thought she smelled like bubblegum, but the more they both thought about it (and talked about, and fantasized over it) the more it just smelled sugary. It reminds Bucky of candy floss or the sharply sweet taffy they used to get rarely when they were kids. The smell never seems to ebb, either. She’s like a sugar mill; everything around her for yards smells like cane and sweetness. It’s so overwhelming and intoxicating that those few times they all met in her apartment they’d lose track of her movements because everything smelled like her.

Now that she hasn’t left their place in a few weeks, all their things smell like her, too; not that Bucky’s complaining. The light sweetness clings to clothes and furniture and sheets, but more and more, the air around her smells… almost burnt, but not quite. Thicker; stickier. Caramelized. 

Bucky shares a lot of significant looks with Steve, but they never mention it. Darcy seems completely oblivious to it, they don’t want to make her self-conscious, and they still aren’t sure they know why it’s happening. Then, one morning, Steve and Bucky (mostly diurnal now, by sheer force of will) are woken up by the cloying smell of dark toffee, overlaid by coppery blood so thick Bucky swears he can taste it when he gasps. 

Steve panics. He sits up in bed and starts pushing the sheets and comforter down to the end, trying to find out who’s bleeding. Bucky’s a bit shaken too; it does smell like an awful lot of blood, and he doesn’t feel injured. The only one in the bed who even has enough blood in their body to make a scent this strong is Darcy, and the implications of her spilling so much blood and them not knowing about it are terrifying. Except, there isn’t any more blood. Not on the sheets or either of their clothes, so they both look to Darcy. She’s rubbing at her face sleepily, still too out of it to object while they roll her around and inspect her for bleeding. Bucky can feel her body temperature is up through the cybernetics in the metal hand, but that could just be from sleep. He tries not to make too much of it as he helps her sit up against the headboard.

“Darcy, c’mon, doll, wake up. Do you feel okay? You hurt anywhere, sweetheart?” Steve asks, obviously reining his panic in hard. Alarming Darce would only make things worse. 

She frowns, confused but taking stock anyway. That’s his girl. After a moment, she cringes a little and brings a hand around to rub at her lower back. “Aww, man. I’m fine, guys, it’s just Aunt Flo. I’ll take care of it, you can go back to sleep.” 

“Aunt Flo?” Bucky repeats, and then feels stupid. “It’s your… time?” 

“Yeah, no big deal. At least I’ve got today off so I can stay in bed. Did the smell of the blood wake you up?” 

“It’s really strong, Darce. We thought one of us was hurt. Are you sure it’s okay?” Steve still looks worried, a little crease forming between his brows while he holds his hands out just short of touching Darcy. Like he’s scared she might tip over and he’s determined to catch her. 

“I’m alright, I just have really heavy periods. I’ve got this old-school copper IUD and I’ve been pretty lucky with side effects, but the bleeding and cramps are serious business. I should get it replaced; they don’t really use them anymore, but it’s what the state would pay for at the time and I just recently got real health insurance back. Anyway, boys, I’m probably bleeding through my pajamas as we speak, so I’m just gonna slip down to my place and get some tampons. That should help with the smell, too.” 

“I’ll go, baby. You don’t have to get up, you’re in pain,” Steve offers, ever the gentleman. “I’ll bring back whatever you have left down there. You didn’t know this was going to happen?”

“Well, theoretically, yeah. In practice, however, the IUD makes my cycle kinda long and unpredictable. I try to track it but I’m always off by at least a few days.” 

“Don’t worry about it, kitten. We’ll get you all set up. You want something for the pain, too?” Bucky asks. 

“Tylenol, in my medicine cabinet, and the heating pad rolled up in the hall closet.” 

“You got it, sugar. I’ll be right back.” Steve pulls on yesterday’s workout clothes over his boxers and heads out to get Darcy’s things. 

Bucky lays down again and pulls her in to spoon, his metal hand running gently up and down her thigh. “You gonna live?”

Darcy snorts. “In about an hour it’s gonna feel like my uterus is trying to turn itself inside out in an attempt to escape my body and take parts of my spine with it. That’ll last about 24 hours, then I’ll be right as rain. The whole thing takes four or five days. I’ll live,” she sighs, snuggling into the curve of his body. It isn’t until her ass presses flush against him that he realizes he’s hard as stone. He hisses at the contact, partially from the feeling and partially just from the surprise. “Oh, you are kidding me,” she says, but sounds more amused than angry. “I’ve had boyfriends and vampires in my life, but I’ve never had vampire boyfriends. I guess I never thought about how this would affect you.”

“Don’t worry about it, Darcy. You don’t have’ta-” 

“Before, when you were young, were you ever with a girl while she had her period?” 

He’s too stunned to respond for a moment. He thinks back and finds, surprisingly, that he hasn’t. Bucky’s not totally ignorant of the process, having a mother and only sisters growing up, but he was never committed to a dame long enough to really talk with her about it. There was Peggy, but they all saw each other so sporadically, it somehow never came up. He wonders briefly if Stevie has. “No. I guess it was a bit more taboo to mention back then. If a girl was on the rag, she might not come out, or just say she didn’t want to fool around and we wouldn’t. No problem.” 

“But, you’re not, like, grossed out by it?” 

“No, never have been. Does this feel ‘grossed out’ to you?” he asks, giving her a nice, slow grind.    
“Well, the thing is, not all uterine contractions are created equal. Orgasm can help relieve pain and settle cramping faster.” Her voice comes out a little hesitant like she might be about to apologize for even suggesting it and that makes him want to track down the little boy who was ‘grossed out’ by her body and laugh in his face. It just won’t do. 

“Sweetheart, you’re my best girl; you need something from me, all you have to do is ask.” Bucky slips out from behind Darcy, rolling her onto her back and holding himself above her. He kisses her tenderly and waits to feel her body respond. In seconds, she’s rolling her hips against his and fisting her hands in his thin tee shirt. 

“C’mon, Buck, I hurt. Make me feel good?” 

He growls at her, deep in his throat, even baring his teeth a little. “You know I will. Relax, kitten. Take your top off for me.” 

She does, sitting up just enough to pull it over her head while he tugs at the waistband of her bottoms. When she’s naked before him, he works his way between her knees, sliding his hands up and over her hips; the unyielding metal wrapping around to rub at her lower back like she had before, and flesh continuing on to her beautiful, full breast. Darcy hisses and he pulls back so fast he almost rolls her again getting the prosthetic away from her. 

“No, no, it’s okay. The massaging was good, it’s just that the girls are too sensitive right now. The hormones make them kinda achy. Better leave that to me, soldier, and get the rest of you back to work.” 

Bucky just smirks at her. Challenge accepted. He puts his metal fingers back to work on the tight muscles at the small of her back and lays one delicate kiss in the valley between her breasts before moving on. Kissing, licking, and nipping his way down her torso, he thinks about her smell again. It’s impossibly thicker than before, heavy in the air like fog. It makes him throb, the slide of his cotton boxers on his engorged skin just the right side of too harsh. All that is forgotten, though, when he gets down to the neatly trimmed curls between her legs and can actually see blood dripping from her onto the white sheets. 

Before he really knows what he’s doing, he’s got his thumb there, spreading her open for him to get a better look. Deep red blood pools at her entrance briefly before he swipes his thumb through it again and rubs it all along the length of her, taking a moment to pay some attention to her clitoris, too. She whines and writhes in his periphery, but all he can see is her thighs shaking and his thumb coated in blood. He pops it into his mouth on instinct. 

Darcy gasps and Bucky looks up sharply, worried something’s wrong. She’s gaping at him like he just performed a miracle, but blushing like she got caught with her hands down her pants, and he’s not sure what’s going on. 

“How… does it, um, taste like regular blood?” 

Bucky rolls his tongue around in his mouth, rubbing it against the roof to get the blood all over. He shakes his head. “Tastes… charred. Like roasted hazelnuts. Scalded milk. You ever burn hot chocolate?” 

That gets a little laugh out of her. “How do you burn hot chocolate?” 

“When I was a kid you made it by mixing melted chocolate with water and cream, but chocolate and cream were too expensive to waste, so if you left it too long and it started to scald, too bad. It had this hard edge to it. Dark. It’s like that.” He lets his hand fall back down between her legs. “Has anyone ever done this for you before, baby? While you were bleeding?”

“Sure,” she says, breathless. “Not very often, but a lot of guys don’t mind sex during a girl’s period.” 

“That’s not what I mean.” 

If her eyes could have gotten wider or darker, they would have. “You mean t-taste?” 

He grins down at her and he knows it’s wolfish; all fangs. “Yeah, I mean taste. Has anyone else ever bothered to taste this?” 

Darcy shakes her head, mute. Excellent. 

Bucky hooks his hands under her knees and drags her over to the edge of the bed so he can kneel between her thighs. It’s his favorite way to do this, only ever made better by Steve being there to hold one of her knees and kiss her quiet. When he sees the amount of blood smeared around between her legs, he grabs the flat sheet from the tangle at the end of the bed and bunches it under his knees to protect the carpet. He pauses, just looking at her, hoping to see another little rush of blood. Darcy starts to squirm under his scrutiny, or from unfulfilled arousal, and he can’t make her wait any longer. 

He starts with the long, firm licks he knows she likes, throwing in a little nip here, gentle suction  _ just there _ , and dipping his tongue roughly into her as often as he can get away with. It doesn’t actually do much for her, but once he gets the taste of her like this in the back of his throat he needs more. He laps it up like life-giving elixir, keeping his fingers moving on her aching back the whole time. 

They’re both so engrossed, neither of them notice Steve walking back into the room until he drops the little bag he retrieved for Darcy. “I leave you two alone for five minutes…” The fondness in his tone belies his words. 

“Don’t be jealous, baby. It’s medicinal,” she pants. 

Steve laughs. Bucky would too if he could bring himself to take his mouth off of her. Instead, he just holds his hand out, beckoning Steve over. Not needing to be told twice, he crosses the room and drops to his knees next to Bucky. 

“Wow.” 

Seeing the expression on Steve’s face, he considers what they must look like: Darcy splayed out and wound up above him, him kneeling in front of her pussy as if it’s an alter, wet all the way to his collarbones with her blood, and both of them panting like this is a marathon. 

“C’mere,” is all Bucky can think of to say. 

They kiss, tentative at first, and then passionate as Steve gets the taste of Darcy in his mouth and starts to become hungry for it. After that, it’s easy to guide Steve to her clit, let him taste her for a while so Bucky can press two fingers inside her. He finds her g-spot easily and strokes her there, blood oozing around his two fingers and dripping down his wrist as she gets wetter. 

Darcy comes like an earthquake, rocking her hips and twisting her spine, shaking the whole bed. They gentle her down from the peak until she’s limp and humming at the residual pleasure. Steve and Bucky reach for each other immediately, and their boxers don’t even hit the floor before they're splashing one another with come. 

“Jesus, Buck,” Steve breathes. “I had no idea you-”

“Me neither. Shit.” 

“Called it,” Darcy announces from her spot, now curled up on the bed.

“You did not.” 

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter, we all know now. This should make for an interesting couple of days. But first, we need showers. It looks like a slasher flick up in here.” 

  
  


The tampons and pads are voted out of the apartment, 2 to 1, the following morning. That first day they kept her in bed, as promised, and between the two of them and her electric heating pad, she didn’t feel much pain. She had put on a pad to sleep (“To save my PJs, Bucky. I’ll never get those sheets 100% white again, and we’re gonna have to burn this mattress if we ever move out; I may as well get to keep these panties.”), which did help mute the smell so they could sleep, but when Bucky peels it off her in the morning to get his fix he’s assaulted by the harsh scent of plastic and some chemical combination he can’t name. Uncertain, he gets closer, nosing into the humid space between her labia and her thigh, and taking a tentative taste. 

Darcy jolts, ticklish, and laughs into Steve’s mouth. “What are you doing down there, dude? If that’s your teasing game, I’m gonna have to give you a few pointers.” 

He lays his head on her belly and licks at her navel, where she tastes like herself. “You don’t taste right. Everywhere that thing touched you reeks of plastic and oil.” 

“Really? Huh. I guess I never thought about what’s in those things. They’re all pretty much the same, though, so you’re just gonna have to get used to plastic around this time of the month.” 

Bucky wrinkles up his nose, baring a fang. “Girls in our day used cloth. You ever tried it?” 

“Buck, don’t push. She can do whatever she wants with her… blood. She’s the one who’s uncomfortable here,” Steve says, flicking Bucky’s ear even as he’s blushing prettily. 

“No, it’s okay. I haven’t lived with anyone with preternatural senses before. I want to be sensitive to that. Can you smell it, too?”

“Yeah.” He looks mildly embarrassed to be admitting it. “Pretty much as soon as we kicked the covers off. I’m not really put off by it now, but I’m sure it’s stronger on your skin. Really, though, Darce, you should do whatever is easier for you.” 

“How about this: I’ll do some research and try a few things. If I don’t like them, I go back to my way and  _ you _ ,” she jabs at Bucky’s protruding lower lip with her thumb, “can learn to deal. Okay?” 

“Okay, kitten, sounds good to me. In the meantime,” Bucky says, levering himself up and off the bed. He reaches down and picks Darcy up around the waist and throws her over his right shoulder, to her squeal of delight. “I’m taking you to the bath. I’m guessing some nice warm water will get you tasting right and all that blood flowing again.” 

She kicks and flails her fists in mock indignation, laughing the whole time. “Steve, help!” 

Bucky catches his lover’s eye and grins. Steve smiles back, wide and bright, and crawls his way across the bed as Bucky turns toward the bathroom. 

“Oh, I’ll help, alright.”

 

~*~

 

While Darcy does research on alternative menstrual products, Bucky does research on cycle tracking apps. He downloads a few, then deletes any that don’t have the option to add indicators. Bucky’s very well acquainted with Darcy’s body by now, but he’s not about to ask her if she’s getting mood swings or feels bloated. What he really wants to be able to track is her smell. He looks for days and tries to reprogram some of the more promising ones, but nothing he finds on his computer or smartphone is very helpful. 

Instead, he just gets a Moleskine and starts taking notes. Even he has to admit, it gets a bit… verbose. He intends to clean it up at some point, organized and laid out so he could compare it to a real calendar.  

But first, Steve finds it.

“In the last stage, there are hints of smoke. Reminiscent of whiskey aged in cherry wood barrels. Clove cigarettes, filterless, smoke thick enough to taste. Dulled sweetness at the front of the pallet and harsher at the back of the throat. Wish I still craved water. Or liquor. Now it’s just whatever sweetness Darcy distils.” 

Steve reads him the paragraph he wrote that morning as he walks into the apartment. He hasn’t showered yet, but it’s not much more than a habit by this point. Neither he nor Steve sweat and showers are mostly for fun with Darcy. His gym bag hits the floor as Steve levels a quizzical stare at him. 

He doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong but Steve wouldn’t have bothered with the theatrics if he agreed. 

“What is this?” He stands in the living room, tossing the journal between his palms as if holding it too long will burn him. 

Bucky knows Steve, knows his face and it’s expression better than his own. After all these years he hasn’t quite cataloged everything, but this is suspicion. Fear for, and of, him. 

It makes him sick inside, twists a little self-doubt through his gut. “I’m tracking Darcy’s scent. Nothin’ wrong with that.”

"I can see that Buck, what I'm curious about is why."

He shrugs. "She was complaining that she can't predict her period. I can. Just tryin' to be helpful." 

“Helpful,” Steve repeats, sounding dubious. 

Bucky rolls his eyes. “It’s a hobby, Steve. What else would I do with that information? Write poetry?”

“It’s just… It’s a little odd, Buck. Can you really suss out all these little elements? I don’t notice half these things, at least not the way you do. I’m trying to understand.”

He gets that; it is a little odd. To Steve, it probably seems proprietary at best, and predatory at worst. He has those feelings, but Sam Wilson, despite his inexperience with vampire instincts, has taught him a lot about self-assessment and care, and that recovering from trauma isn’t a single solution problem. Piled on top of his other issues, Sam could teach a master class with his case by now. He’s helping Bucky, though, and Bucky’s learning to help himself. He likes to think he’d know it if the scent journal were increasing the chances he’d hurt Darcy. “You don’t notice it?”

“Well, I can tell things are changing; that’s obvious. I guess I just don’t think about it in the same terms. You compare her a lot in here to… food.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow, giving him a wry look. “Stevie-”

“I know,” he interrupts, holding up his hands. “I know, but… Christ, maybe I don’t know. I’m sorry, Bucky, I don’t mean to make you feel like I think you’re dangerous. I know you’re in control. It’s just that we seem to be experiencing this uniquely in a lot of ways, and I don’t like it. Sometimes, I feel closer to you than ever, and other’s it’s like we’re from different planets.” 

Bucky crosses the room in a few quick strides and envelopes his partner in a hug. Steve reciprocates instantly, wrapping Bucky up tightly and sighing in relief. 

“I know it’s strange sometimes, baby. I’ve been thinking about it recently, too. How the serum enhanced us, and then the… vampire thing, enhanced our individual blend of serum. It feels good to do things like this; I can’t control those instincts, or really tune them out successfully, but I can channel them into constructive things. It’s interesting, really, learning how her body works.” 

“It feels different to me,” Steve says, face hidden in Bucky’s neck. “It’s not the same satisfying, full feeling as drinking from her veins, but it’s energizing. And the taste… It’s like it’s condensed; cooked down into syrup.” 

“Now who’s comparing her to food?” Bucky chuckles, ruffling Steve’s hair with the metal hand. He enjoys they way the cybernetics interpret the texture of it, especially where it’s short at the base of his skull. 

“It’s impossible not to. Just because I don’t talk about keeping her in bed day and night doesn’t mean I don’t think about it: the bite, her body. Constantly.” 

“Were you thinking about it while reading my journal?” He lets his voice drop down, quiet and deep, and grazes Steve’s neck with his lips on every word. Moving his flesh hand from around Steve’s back, he delicately investigates the inseam of Steve’s khakis. “You were.” 

Steve gasps, trying to pull back, but Bucky just follows his motion. They end up with him falling backward onto the couch and Bucky sitting on his thighs. 

“We haven’t done this in a while, have we? Just you and me, without blood, because we want to.” He knows he’s right, that Steve’s been missing this, and he’s rewarded by Steve grabbing his ass with both hands and groaning at the back of his throat. “This is still who we are, Steve. Two men who love each other.” 

“And Darcy.” 

“And Darcy,” Bucky agrees, grinning down at him. Steve stretches up for a kiss, but Bucky dodges back and slides to his knees on the floor. He keeps talking as he undoes Steve’s belt. “You should tell her some of that stuff. She wants to hear it. Sometimes, she seems a little self-conscious, unsure of her place and still a little embarrassed of her reactions. If you embrace your urges a bit more, I bet she’d really open up.” 

Bucky manages to pull Steve’s cock gently out of his pants with only a little shuffling of clothes. Steve’s always looked so good rumpled and unbuttoned, Bucky hates to waste an opportunity to see it. He doesn’t waste time either, taking the already glistening head into his mouth. 

Steve hisses, but cups the back of his head with one hand, holding him there. They make eye contact just like that, Bucky holding Steve’s cock against the roof of his mouth with his tongue, trying not to smile, and Steve on the verge of losing himself to pleasure. 

“I’ll tell her. We’ll make her so happy, Buck. I promise.”

Neither of them speak again until Darcy comes home.

 

~*~

 

Darcy gets her next period in the middle of one of Jane Foster’s influxes of genius that keep them both in the laboratory for days at a time. She texts Steve to warn him she’ll be coming home as soon as she can wind Jane down to an approximation of a reasonable person again and get her to go to bed. They’ve been up for about 20 hours at this point and Darcy must be exhausted and hurting by now.  

Around the 30 hour mark, she finally drags herself through the door. She groans, long and loud, while shedding her bag and boots then curls up on the couch, sideways in Steve’s lap. He rubs her back with one hand and digs his thumb into the fleshy part of her hip with the other, turning her noises of complaint into something more relieved.

“Long day, doll? What can we do for you?” 

“The usual? A couple orgasms and a hot shower?” Bucky asks; quite helpfully if he does say so himself.

“Will you feed me somewhere in there? Because that’s the only thing that could make that plan better.” 

Steve’s laugh rumbles in his chest. “Already thought of. Dinner’s in the oven, you can eat whenever you want.” 

“Then take me to bed, boys. No amount of ibuprofen can get the stiffness out of my muscles or help me shake this icky feeling. I need you two for that.” 

Darcy turns over to look up and smile at Steve. He grins back at her and scoops her up against his chest, giving her a sweet kiss before standing up and carrying her toward the bedroom. “You heard the lady.”

Bucky snorts. Yes, indeed he did. He follows them down the hall and to bed. 

Steve lays her out on top of the blankets, but Darcy twists and kicks until they’re pushed down and off the end. They crawl onto the newly bare bed, one on each side of her, and just work on soothing all the work stress from her for a while. Gentle kisses cover her face and neck, kneading fingers grasp at her hips, thighs, and lower back. When she’s sighing and humming happily, Bucky finally lays her on her back and climbs over her, tugging at the waistband of her jeans. 

“What are you wearing under here, kitten?” 

She raises an eyebrow and gives him a playful look. “What do you think?” 

He’s not sure. Bucky and Steve were both glad to be rid of her stash of tampons and pads, even if Steve was much more tactful in his request about it. After that, Darcy had considered cloth but dismissed it as too messy and difficult to take care of. She ordered two different menstrual cups, tried them on, and immediately threw them both away; she seemed so traumatized, Bucky didn’t even ask why. He didn’t really mind anyway. They were both silicone and the scent was softer but just as pervasive as the plastic. 

Bucky doesn’t know what she decided to try next. “Let’s find out.” 

He and Steve start peeling clothes off and by the time everyone is naked Darcy’s rocking her hips against nothing, whimpering into Steve’s kiss. Bucky cups her between her legs, carefully opening her with his fingers. She’s hot and ready for them, and he explores her slowly, watching her face for any signs of discomfort. Darcy’s not enthusiastic about the intrusion yet, but she nuzzles at Steve’s chin and murmurs, “careful Buck, you’re almost there.” 

That’s when he feels it: something soft and malleable inside her, just barely up to his second knuckle. “Should I…”

She nods, hiding her face in Steve’s neck. He slips his fingers into the hair at the back of her head and brings her face back up to his. “Darcy, baby, don’t be shy. Look at me.” 

Bucky watches, entranced, as Steve lays little kisses over her nose and eyes. 

“Nothing to be shy about. We’re excited to have you in bed. You’re so sexy, doll. Do you like this?” 

Darcy nods again, still trying to avoid looking into Steve’s eyes. “It’s just… intimate. Feels pretty intense. Bucky, for fuck’s sake, move your fingers.” 

He startles, having been so mesmerized by them he forgot what he was supposed to be doing. Bucky feels around carefully for a way to grip the object between his two fingers and eases it out of her body. 

It’s a sponge; pliable, silky to the touch, and heavy with her blood. He brings it up close to his face to examine it and a wave of Darcy’s scent hits him so hard he nearly recoils off the end of the bed. The material in his hand has no real smell, it’s just absorbed the full spectrum of her’s for the hours it was inside her. Removing it released everything it was holding there and it’s nothing but femininity, arousal, and  _ Darcy _ . He resists a very strong urge to just put it in his mouth. 

“It’s a sea sponge,” Darcy supplies. “It’s natural, used to be alive in fact. Lots of people on the internet love them.” 

“I think I love them too,” Bucky says. “Who’s doing laundry this week?” 

“Whatever you’re thinking about, Buck, just do it,” Steve says. 

They’re both watching him now, Steve still holding Darcy to him by the hand in her hair, the two of them looking for all the world like a Botticelli. Before he can change his mind, he moves the little sponge to his cybernetic hand and starts to squeeze its contents out over Darcy’s torso. 

Steve whines like he’s hurt and buries his face in Darcy’s neck. 

“Now who’s shy,” she giggles, full of warmth for Steve, but Bucky can tell she’s self-conscious. 

“Not shy,” Steve says, voice low and rumbling. “Taking a second to control myself before I do something ungentlemanly.” 

Bucky grins. “What do you want, Stevie? You want this?” he asks, opening his hand to offer Steve the sponge in his palm. “Or do you want me to move out of your way and let you get to the source?” 

Steve doesn’t say anything, just moves his hand down Darcy’s neck, between her breasts, and right into the thick, red slick of blood on her stomach. He drags it back up the same path, leaving shiny trails behind his fingertips. His thumb smears blood over her cheek as he coaxes her to look at him. “Nothing is too intimate or too intense between us, sweetheart. Nothing. I want to be inside you. Is that okay?”

“ _ Yes _ ,  _ please _ .” 

Bucky flops down on Darcy’s right side, giving Steve his place between her legs. The fingers of his flesh hand glide through the wet blood pooled in her navel, then swirl up to gently rub her pebbled nipples. She moans, her back arching and twisting toward him, searching for a kiss. “Shh, baby, don’t look over here. Look at him.” He nuzzles his way behind her ear and stays there, planting sucking little kisses and keeping her head propped so she’s looking up no matter how hard she thrashes. 

“Jesus… you look like an abstract from up here. Watercolor,” Steve murmurs, making fingerprints in the tacky, drying blood on her sides. He leans down, insinuating a hand between Darcy and Bucky to brace himself above her, and Bucky watches them kiss passionately. Their hips writhe but don’t catch the same rhythm, so he slips his hand down between their heaving bellies and uses gentle fingers to guide them to one another. He can’t get much friction on his own cock in this position, and his other arm is trapped under Darcy’s neck, but he wouldn’t trade it for the feeling of Steve, hard as steel, slipping between his fingers and into Darcy’s scorching body. The noises they make at that moment are enough reward on their own. 

No one moves for a long beat, the only sound in the room Darcy's panting breath. Then, Steve breaks into a steady, hard rhythm. He sits up a bit, holding Darcy with both hands around her ribs while his hips move against her still ones. Their eyes are locked to one another's, but Bucky can't look away from the space between them, the place all three of them meet and glide together, slicked by blood, as he rubs the pads of three fingers over her clitoris. 

It doesn't take long for Darcy to come, shoulders lifting off the mattress and crying out for Steve. Bucky stops stroking her but can't bring himself to move his hand away from her dripping pussy. She looks more dazed by the second as Steve continues to fuck her through it, staring at her like she's a revelation the whole time. 

Bucky knows that feeling. 

Darcy comes again, still chanting " _ steve, steve, steve, _ " before his face finally starts to twist up like he's fighting tears and he shudders and moans through an intense orgasm. Bucky can feel it pulse through him where his fingers are pressed against him between Darcy's legs. 

His cock twitches at the sensation but he ignores it, too caught up in the sights, smells, and sounds in front of him to give a damn about his own pleasure. They're both just so beautiful, and he hasn't seen them so focused on each other before. Bucky knows he wanted her first and mostly led Steve into this by the hand, and that Darcy finds his own rakish personality easier to navigate than Steve's sometimes stiff chivalry, but they're finding their way into one another's hearts too. It's an amazing and gratifying thing to watch, especially here in bed, where it all comes to the surface so readily and he knows they're all going to be in love together. If they're not already. 

Steve's still hard, circling his hips restlessly while he waits to be sure Darcy is okay to keep going. Bucky squeezes the root of him between the 'v' of his fingers and Steve swears colorfully. 

"You alright Darcy? You want some more, sweetheart? 'Course you do; your blood and come are dripping off my fingers. Stevie's gonna fuck you again. Can you handle that?" 

"What about you?" she asks, voice small and wrecked. She tries to turn her head to him, but he won’t let her look away from Steve. 

"Don't worry about me, kitten. I want to watch you for a while longer. We have plenty of time."

 

~*~

 

Bucky’s confident the experience of those two cycles and his little notebook are all he needs to start predicting Darcy’s periods. He keeps his chart up, comparing to the previous entries and making footnotes about them, and he’s very sure of himself when he tells her over dinner, “you’re going to start bleeding tomorrow.” 

“What? You mean my period?” 

“Yeah. Tomorrow morning, I think. Around twelve hours from now.” 

“You… oh gods, you can smell it, can’t you?” 

“We told you we can, Darce,” Steve adds, a little sheepish. 

“Yeah, but I didn’t think- Wait, twelve hours? That’s pretty specific.”

Bucky shrugs. “Just trying to be helpful, kitten.” 

“What do you think, Steve? Is he right?”

“I’m not really sure. I think his sense of smell is better than mine. I can tell that things are changing in your body, but Buck seems a little more sensitive to it than me.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of an endorsement. Maybe we should make this interesting.” 

“You wanna bet with me, doll? Name your stakes,” Bucky laughs, leaning forward and raking his eyes up and down her body, just be to sure she’s got the idea. 

“If you’re wrong, I think you should give Steve a break from the cooking when it actually does come. And I want that Black Forest cake you make. That’ll make all our lives easier.”

Leave it to his girl to win a bet and ask for something for other people. “And when I’m right?”

“Pick your prize,” Darcy shrugs, like she doesn’t know exactly what he wants from her. 

"You're on. Better be prepared to pay up, sweetheart." 

It takes ten hours. Darcy wakes up with a headache and cramps, having already bled through her shorts and onto Steve's while they were all spooning. Bucky calls Jane to tell her Darcy won't be coming into work today or tomorrow for the usual reason, and Jane wishes her well before hanging up. 

When he makes it back to bed with Darcy’s heating pad, two of her pain pills, and a cold glass of water, Steve has her laying against his chest, pressing in on her hips and kneading at the muscles just the way she likes. Bucky gets in bed next to them, laying his head next to her’s on Steve’s shoulder and brushing stray hairs from her face. “This may not be the best time, but I would like to point out that I was right.”

There’s a brief moment of stillness where he’s worried he’s about to get clocked one, and he’s not sure who’s gonna do it either, then Darcy laughs. “James Barnes, you are incorrigible. Do you ever think about anything that’s not blood or sex?”

“All the time, doll. But when it comes to you, it’s all connected. I can’t think about blood or sex anymore without thinking of you, and I can’t think of you without thinking about Stevie, and this place, and all the rest of our lives.” 

Her expression softens and her body rocks a little as Steve wraps his arms further around her and squeezes. Tears are forming in Darcy's eyes even as she's smiling at him and he's not sure what to do, until she reaches up and touches his face. "Guess you better ask for your winnings then, and make it special. I'm in a mood to give you anything you want." 

"I do want something special, something we haven't done all together before. I think you're gonna like it. You're gonna have to climb off Steve, though; I need his help."

She makes a little noise of protest that makes Steve snort and smile but moves onto the mattress. Bucky arranges her so her neck and shoulders rest against the headboard and worms his way between her legs, using his shoulders to prop them open and laying his head on her thigh. He wraps his arms around under her legs to take over where Steve left off, rubbing her back and hips. The dark, over-cooked caramel smell of her here is making him light-headed, so he nuzzles into her hip crease and tries to settle into the bed with his knees spread as wide as he can. Steve groans behind him, obviously catching on. 

Bucky grins. "Get something slick, baby. I wanna give our girl a little show. Would you like that, doll?"

"God, yes. I've been hoping you'd share this with me. You're so beautiful together." 

The mattress dips as Steve crawls over to the nightstand to find lube. "We haven't been holding back or anything, Darce. We just get too focused on you sometimes. This takes more time and patience than we usually have when all of us are in bed together. You don't feel that way, do you? That we're not willing to share bonding things between us with you?" 

“It’s crossed my mind... but I don't really think it's true. You two are kinda intimidating with your ageless love affair, but I like to see how much you love each other. I get to be close and bask in the warmth of it. That's enough." 

She smiles and Bucky knows she means it. It's not enough for him, though. She deserves to have more. "We love you, too, ya' know." 

Darcy demures, lowering her lashes and looking away. "Bucky-"

"We do," Steve says from behind him, and Bucky wishes like hell he could see Steve's face in that moment. "We love you, too. I can't imagine not having you with us now." 

Bucky's watching her look up at Steve, a kind of happy awe on her face, when he feel's the first cold, wet touch of Steve's fingers. He jolts a little instinctively, then relaxes, letting his weight sink into Darcy and the mattress. It's been awhile since they've done this, so the feeling of intrusion is especially intense. He tries to settle and not squirm, but it's difficult with his cock already hard and Darcy carding her fingers through his hair. 

"I love you," she says, and Bucky instantly tenses, looking up at her sharply. She's smiling back, holding in a giggle. Steve stops moving his fingers but keeps rubbing his other hand up and down Bucky's flank. "Both of you. I'm really glad I'm here."

"Do you wanna stop, Buck?" 

"God, no. Just- talk to me, Stevie." 

Steve chuckles but goes back to rubbing lube into him. "You comfortable there? You two look so good together. I think it's all that dark hair. I love watching you cuddle." 

"I love watching  _ you _ cuddle," Darcy interjects. "Did you always ignore each other's personal space or is it just this decade that you started napping in a pile like puppies?" 

"Always. It was innocent for a long time, especially in the winter when I would get so sick I couldn't get warm. We were in our twenties before it became something else, but we had a few good years before the war." 

"Had a few good times during the war, too. Did I- ah! Fuck, Steve," Bucky groans. Steve's fingers graze his prostate and then back off. "More stretching and less fingering. I want you in me." 

Steve laughs again but complies. More lube dribbles onto him and a third finger joins in massaging his rim and coaxing him open. 

"Did I ever tell you I dreamed about it? Before I woke up like this I dreamed we were in Germany. I was standing watch, and I was so ha-happy because I knew I was going to see you any minute w-when you came to relieve me. Okay, Steve, Jesus, I'm ready." Bucky's panting now, twisting his hips trying to get Steve's fingers deeper, despite the truth of his earlier words; he doesn't want to get off without Steve inside him. 

"Shh, I know. Just let me move you a little." Steve brings Bucky's knees in a bit, just enough so he can kneel with his on the outside. Bucky feels him line himself up, then bend down and rub his forehead on the back of Bucky's neck. A little kiss falls between his shoulder blades. "You just gonna lay there?"

"You gonna take it easy on me so I can concentrate?" 

"Mmm," Steve hums against his skin and he feels like it's vibrating him everywhere. "Is that how you want it, sweetheart? Nice and slow, and sweet?" 

Bucky nods, not trusting his voice to stay steady. The long, easy breach of his body makes him moan up against Darcy's flesh, and she gasps at the sensation. 

Darcy's so wet. She's been leaking blood slowly the whole time, but she's aroused now too, swollen, and soft, and hot against his cool skin. He licks her like Steve is fucking him: slow but firm, with a nice, rough grind at the end. It feels so perfect, like he was meant to do it.

He floats in that space for what feels like a long time. Bless Steve Rogers and his saintly control, because Bucky's not sure he could have kept up the steady pace for however long it took him to make Darcy come. She does, though, and pulls his hair as she shakes through it. 

"Bucky..." Steve groans, sounding desperate. 

Bucky fists his metal hand in the sheets, just in case, but squeezes Darcy's hip with the other and presses his face to the inside of a thigh. "Yeah, baby, go ahead. I want it." 

Instantly, Steve is fucking him in hard, short strokes that work the crown of his cock over Bucky's prostate again and again. The sensation is huge, dizzyingly overwhelming after getting Darcy's blood in his system. He knows he can't come like this, but the inertia almost fools him. 

Steve comes with a shout that gusts between his shoulder blades and a pulsing he can feel where he's stretched tight around Steve's cock. That, and one last grind into the soft, damp sheets under him, finally sets him off. 

"Can we do that again?" Darcy pants, releasing the tension on his hair. 

Bucky and Steve both laugh so hard they almost lose their connection. "Sure, kitten. We can do that as much as you want." 

**Author's Note:**

> call-me-yt.tumblr.com  
> eratosyne.tumblr.com


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